Miranda felt the girls behind her were enjoying the row, and that the electricians were looking on, and that Miss Jay was delighted that Madame was telling her off, and she lost her head.
“I do think it’s inconsiderate. It’s an important part and, naturally, I’m nervous. I think it was a bit too much to expect me to do this matinée as well.”
There was an awful pause. Then Madame’s voice, at its coldest, rang across the theatre:
“Miss Jay, Sorrel Forbes knows Miranda’s lines, I think.”
Miss Jay was in a quandary. Sorrel did know the lines, but she had only just rattled them through; and in any case, she could hardly hope that Sorrel could be as good as Miranda, but she knew Madame. It was no good saying things like that. Madame would far rather have a part less well played than have one of her pupils get away with bad behaviour such as Miranda had just shown, so she nodded.
“Yes, she knows the lines. There was no thought of her playing, as you know, so I’ve not rehearsed her in them.”
“Then please send someone to tell Sorrel that she will be taking over Miranda’s parts and, as soon as she’s changed and you’re ready, the rehearsal can begin.”
Miranda was like a pricked balloon. All the arrogance had blown out of her.
“But Madame, I didn’t mean it, truthfully I didn’t. I’m awfully sorry. I want to take my parts in the matinée.”
“You should have thought of that before,” Madame retorted. “If you will change, I will see that some arrangement is made for sending you home.”
Sorrel was talking to Alice in the passage outside the dressing-rooms.
“The call boy comes along when they’re ready to start,” Alice was saying, “and raps on each door and says, ‘Overture and beginners, please.’”
“What does he say when they aren’t beginners? I mean, when they are proper actors and actresses?”
Alice was quite shocked at such ignorance.
“It’s nothing to do with how long you’ve been working. It means the overture is going to start and everybody who is concerned in the beginning of the act goes down on the stage. When it’s a proper play, like the one your Grandmother is rehearsing now, he calls people by their names. He’ll rap and he’ll say, ‘Overture and beginners, Miss Shaw, please’, and then he comes to the room where Miranda’s dressing and then he’ll say, ‘Overture and beginners, Miss Brain, please.’ When the play’s been on a bit of a time I’ll take you round one matinée. You won’t be allowed to come in our dressing-room, anybody about gets us in a fidget, but I’ll see if I can get the stage manager to let you stand down in the prompt corner.”
One of the children had been selected by Miss Jay to find Sorrel. She came tearing up the passage. Her words tumbled out in a jumble.
“Sorrel, there’s been the most fearful row. Miranda’s sauced Madame, and Madame told her off good and proper, and she isn’t to take part in the matinée, and Miss Jay says you’re to take all her parts, and will you go to number three dressing-room where the clothes are? If you can’t find a black overall for your first entrance, it doesn’t matter; you can wear your shoes and socks and your lamb’s tunic.”
Alice was the one who grasped all this. An understudy thrown on in a hurry was the breath of life to her. She snorted like a hunter who hears hounds.
“Come on, ducks, here’s your chance. Fancy, the very first time too! The numbers of understudies I’ve known who have waited from one end of the run to the other for something like this to happen. Even got so far as to grease the old apples and pears, hoping for a sprained ankle or something. And here you’re going on the very first time!”
Sorrel clutched at Alice, as if Alice was the only piece of wood and she was a drowning mariner.
“Alice, I can’t. I don’t know it. I mean I’ve never acted them properly, or anything.”
Alice took her firmly by the arm.
“Nonsense! Come on now, you show young Miranda she’s not the only member of the family who’s inherited the Warren talent.” She pulled Sorrel into dressing-room number three. “Sit down, ducks, while I comb out your hair and give you a bit of make-up.” She turned to the girl who had come to fetch Sorrel. “Nip along to the room we were in, number nine it is, and get Sorrel’s socks and sandals.”
Sorrel thought that morning the most awful she had ever lived through. Miranda, besides compèring the whole show, took part in two little sketches; and, of course, being Miranda, they were both leading parts. Miranda was bigger than Sorrel, and none of the clothes fitted properly. Because she was nervous, Sorrel stammered over some of her words. In the little sketch in which she wore a crinoline, she tripped over her frock. She felt in such a rush and tear; there was never time to be sure what she was doing with anything. Now and again, she cast anxious glances at Miss Jay and she saw that Miss Jay looked harassed, and she did not blame her. Poor Miss Jay! How sickening for her to have the show ruined like this!
At the end of the performance, Miss Jay asked to have the curtain raised. She called the children on to the stage to receive notes from Madame. Madame came down to the front of the stalls. She had a page of notes in her hand. First of all, because it was the subject she liked best, she spoke to the dancers. She had been, she said, exceedingly pleased with the winter ballet. The fairies had kept their line very well, but she would like this afternoon to take them herself, the glissades were not clean cut, and the line was untidy during the pirouettes. Then she turned to Miriam. She spoke in a warm voice, which all the Academy pupils knew meant she was pleased.
“You seemed to be having a very happy time.” She nodded to Mark. “And as for Mark, you were really a most energetic and sprightly bear. A most realistic study, I thought.”
When she had finished with the dancers, Madame turned to the singing numbers.
“I was pleased with the nursery rhymes, but, Holly, I thought you were a very restless buttercup. What was happening to you?”
Holly came down to the footlights.
“I thought there was a little wind blowing through the garden and it was blowing me from side to side, so that all the other flowers could see if the gold of me showed under their chins.” Then she remembered that perhaps Madame was not so well informed as she was. “If you hold a buttercup under your chin, and you can see yellow, it means you like butter.”
Madame laughed.
“Well, it’s no good any of the flowers liking butter in wartime, so I don’t think we’ll have any wind blowing, Holly. I want a very grand, proud buttercup who stands still and shows off her petals.”
She turned back to Mark.
“That was very nice indeed, Mark, though there was one moment when I was a little nervous whether I was going to be able to see you as a bear later on.”
Mark was still in his bearskin, but he had the bear’s mask under his arm. He raced down to the footlights, his words falling over each other.
“It wasn’t anything to do with bears, it was a hiccup!”
“I see. Well, I suppose hiccups happen to even the best singers; but I very much hope nothing like that will happen to-morrow. It would be most disappointing if I were unable to see you as a bear a second time. Now all the dancers and singers can go. I only want those concerned with the sketches to remain.”
Sorrel wriggled her way to the back of the waiting children. “Oh, gosh!” she thought. “Now it’s coming. She’s going to tell me I was terrible, and I know it’s perfectly true.”
Madame waited until the last of the dancers and singers had gone through the pass door.
“The sketches which concern Sorrel were, naturally, a little ragged. You’re used to playing with Miranda, so that is only natural; but on the whole, I am very pleased with you all. When we get back to the Academy, Miss Jay will, of course, take you through them again and give Sorrel a chance to feel easy in her parts. Now where is Sorrel? Come here, my child. I’m really delighted with you. It’s your first term, your clothes don’t fit; they will, of course, be alte
red to-day. You have in no sense been the official understudy, so really it was a splendid effort. Now, don’t feel anxious or worried. I’m sure we are all going to be very proud of you to-morrow.”
Sorrel went back to her dressing-room, hardly knowing that she was walking. She had been so certain that Madame was going to say that she was going to send for Miranda after all, that she had hardly taken in what had been said to her. As she changed, she told Alice all about it.
“I’m going to do it to-morrow, all of it. The two long speeches at the beginning and the end, and the three little ones—the one explaining about the nursery rhymes and the one explaining about the winter ballet, and the one telling about the songs. I don’t mind them so much; it’s the sketches, particularly that awful one where I am a picture come to life. Of course, the thing I step out of may look like a picture on an easel from the audience: but I feel that I’m twitching all over and that everyone knows from the beginning that I’m not a painting. Then, in the scene where I’m a schoolgirl who dreams that she’s in a Victorian schoolroom, I feel all legs. I suppose it’s because the others have got long skirts and pantalettes. I’m not a bit good at all that lacrosse and tennis talk. I don’t know how Miranda managed to sound as though she was; but she did, somehow. The awful part is, I’m meant to be funny. Of course, I know there was only Madame in the theatre this morning; so, of course, nobody could laugh. But won’t it be awful if nobody laughs to-morrow! The seamen laughed and laughed when Miranda did the part.”
Alice plaited Sorrel’s hair.
“Now don’t go working yourself up into a state. All you have to do is to go on and do your best, and nobody can’t ask for more. If I hadn’t had young Holly to keep a hold on, I’d have nipped round in front to have a look at you; but I’ll manage to have a squint to-morrow.”
The next afternoon Sorrel stood beside Miss Jay. They peered at the audience through a little hole in the curtain. It was a special performance for Forces on leave and the house was full of battledress, and the khaki of the girls’ coats and skirts and the navy blue of the sailors and of the W.R.N.S., and the light blue of the Air Force and the W.A.A.F. Because everybody was on leave, and, therefore, in good spirits, there was an absolute roar of conversation and laughter, and the theatre was grey with cigarette smoke. Sorrel looked up at Miss Jay.
“They don’t look as if they needed amusing very much, which is a good thing, isn’t it?”
Miss Jay laughed.
“We shall soon know if we don’t amuse them; they won’t mean to, but they’ll shuffle their feet and cough. Even the nicest audience can be turned very easily into a nasty one.” She was holding Sorrel’s hand, and she gave it a squeeze. “Not that I’m worrying about you. I’m sure you’re going to be a great success.”
“If only something didn’t seem to be turning round and round in my front.”
“Everybody’s got to be nervous,” said Miss Jay. “But there’re some things you can do to help it, try taking very deep breaths.”
Sorrel tried. But somehow the breath got stopped half way.
“I can’t. It’s coming out in little pants, like a dog in the summer.”
“Try again,” Miss Jay encouraged, “and I’ll try too.”
Miss Jay breathed and Sorrel breathed, and all of a sudden Sorrel found it was quite true, the deeper her breaths the less disturbed her front felt.
Winifred came over to them.
“I’ve got a message for you from Madame. What do you think is waiting for you at the Academy when we go back after the matinée?” She saw that Sorrel was not going to guess and was bursting to tell her the news. “It’s a letter from Pauline Fossil, and there’s one for Holly from Posy.”
Miss Jay looked at Winifred.
“This theatre must bring Pauline back to you.”
Winifred nodded.
“I can see us as if it was yesterday, sitting side by side at the audition, me looking a perfect fright in brown, and Pauline looking simply lovely in black chiffon velvet. I knew it was hopeless for me from the beginning and that she’d get the part of Alice.”
“Curious,” said Miss Jay, “how history repeats itself. That little scene yesterday morning must have reminded you of when Pauline put on airs and graces, and you were sent on to play for her, do you remember?”
“Of course. Will I forget? But Pauline was never a bit like …”
Miss Jay laid a hand on Winifred’s arm and stopped her.
“Well, it must be about time we were ringing up. Come along, Sorrel dear.”
Sorrel followed Miss Jay back to the prompt corner. She knew they were not going to ring up, but that Winifred had been going to say that Pauline was never a bit like Miranda. Obviously she could not have been, because everybody in the Academy had been fond of her. Though everybody in the Academy admired Miranda’s work, nobody was really fond of her. It seemed so queer to think that Winifred had been a pupil of Miss Jay’s. Somehow, when a person was grown up and was teaching you, you thought of them just as grown-ups and teachers, and forgot that there were all sorts of ages in grown-ups. Winifred had not stopped being a child very long. It was all queer, very queer. It made Sorrel feel confused. Then suddenly, the orchestra stopped playing popular songs and began Roger Quilter’s Children’s Overture. It was their own music. She clutched at her front.
“Oh goodness, that means we are going to begin, doesn’t it?”
Miss Jay kissed her.
“It does. As you are down already and won’t be called, I shall say to you, ‘Overture and beginners, Sorrel, please.’”
The curtain was up. Sorrel had to come through the front cloth to speak the prologue. The front cloth was of a light lemon colour, and Sorrel, who was not very tall for her age, looked small against it, standing there all by herself. Then her dark hair and black tunic stood out clearly, and the effect was nice. For one or other of these reasons, or perhaps just because the Forces were on leave and in a very good temper, but before she could speak at all they began to clap. Sorrel had never thought of clapping to start with. Why, indeed, should there be when you had not done anything? She tried to speak through it. The audience saw her mouth moving and, whilst some of it was still clapping, the other half were saying “shush.” Then from the prompt corner in just as ordinary a voice as she used in the classroom, Miss Jay said:
“Make a nice curtsey, Sorrel, and begin all over again.”
It seemed queer to Sorrel to hear her voice in that great big place and the first few words left her mouth in a very wobbly condition. Then all of a sudden the audience’s friendliness came to her like a hug, and she spoke directly to it as if it were an old friend. Her prologue was one of welcome, it explained what they were going to try to do to amuse, and finished by announcing the ballet that was to follow. Then she curtsied. There was a roar of applause. She slipped back through the curtain and joined Miss Jay on the side of the stage. Her first entrance was over.
The ballet was not Miss Jay’s business. It was Winifred’s. Winifred watched it from the wings muttering, “Look at Angela’s posture! That’s a queer sort of jeté. Oh, what a shocking pirouette!”
Miss Jay drew Sorrel against the wall.
“Very nice, dear.”
“I’m sorry about the muddle at the beginning, but I never expected them to clap.”
They were, of course, speaking in whispers. Miss Jay leant down.
“Never mind, you’ve learnt a very valuable lesson about speaking through applause.”
Sorrel’s next entrance was to announce the nursery rhymes and then she had to change for her first sketch. Mark came through the pass door and strolled down to her. He looked absolutely unconcerned, and he also, though Sorrel would not have dreamt of telling him so, looked awfully nice in his Kate Greenaway suit.
“Alice has gone in front. Hannah won’t sit in the dressing-room. She said when Holly’s face was painted that Holly was like Jezebel, you know, the one the dogs ate.”
“How do you feel
?” asked Sorrel anxiously.
Mark looked surprised.
“I wasn’t feeling ill.”
Sorrel did not want to put it in his head that he might be nervous, but it did seem queer that anyone should be so calm.
“I meant about singing.”
Mark put on a lordly expression.
“Everybody keeps fuss, fuss, fuss, except me; and I just don’t see anything to fuss about.”
“Except,” Sorrel reminded him, “that if you don’t sing well, you can’t be the bear in the ballet.”
“And who said I wasn’t going to sing well? I just know that I am, so why should I worry?”
Mark was perfectly right. He sang quite beautifully. What was less certain, he strolled to the centre of the stage to sing in just the right way. He was so enchanted at the volume of applause that greeted his songs that, without being told, he gave the same beautiful bow that he gave when greeting Madame, and that made the audience clap louder than ever. Miss Jay, standing on the side of the stage with Winifred, looked at him with amused admiration.
“In any other child this performance would need checking; one would have to be careful that the child didn’t get its head turned and didn’t get hold of stagy tricks; but I take a bet with you that Mark has no conception at this moment that he’s Mark. Whatever else he’s been this afternoon, it’s not Mark Forbes.”
Nothing could be encored on the programme because there was only an hour and a half allowed for the Academy, and they had a programme lasting exactly that long; but if it had been possible to encore, then Mark’s singing would have been. As he came off, Miss Jay beckoned to him.
“Well done, Mark! That was very nice indeed. Now run quietly off to your dressing-room and put on your bearskin.”
Mark looked at her disapprovingly.
“We have been,” he said, “receiving our subjects. We shall not be giving any further audiences to-day.”
Miss Jay was a quick thinker.
“I see, sir. And I take it that it is your Royal wish that your understudy should appear as the bear.”